


Barnes & Noble

by lokiagentofasgard



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (it's all at a canon-typical level but it still needs a warning), Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Dissociation, Donna Noble Deserved Better, Flashbacks, Gen, HYDRA are assholes, PTSD, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Trigger warnings:, Triggers, discussion of canon mind control/wipes, so did bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-01 22:25:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10931253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokiagentofasgard/pseuds/lokiagentofasgard
Summary: ‘I get flashes,’ Donna said, stirring her coffee. ‘Pictures, mostly. Of these – impossible things. Aliens in London. Shadows that move. A giant wasp, of all things. And there’s someone I need to find. A man, I think. I don’t remember what he looks like.’ She prodded at her pie morosely. ‘What about you?’‘Fragments,’ he said. He had refused her offer of food or drink and was sitting opposite her in the booth of the little café outside the museum, staring a little blankly, hood pushed back to reveal unkempt dark hair that fell to his shoulders and bright blue eyes, ringed by shadow. ‘Like when you know a word’s just on the tip of your tongue but you can’t quite find it.’Bucky needs a friend. So does Donna. This is going to end well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've written in *so* many years... and I actually wrote the bulk of it three years ago. 
> 
> Trigger warnings: Canon mind control and alterations, flashbacks/dissociation (not detailed). Please let me know if anything else should be tagged for.

Donna Noble always missed everything.

Titanic over Buckingham Palace? Daleks vs Cybermen? Planets in the sky? She was asleep. On holiday. Hungover. Down with the flu. She just seemed to have a knack for missing everything.

Until she didn’t.

New York was a holiday. A shopping trip. Two weeks, that was it. It was meant to be a reward, a present to herself, because she could afford it now and she had minions who could do her work for two weeks. Her business had taken off big time, and Noble PR Inc had just scored a major contract with Stark Industries (which for some reason there wasn’t much competition for. Apparently the former CEO had a reputation). Donna Noble, CEO.

So she went to New York, because she needed a holiday and it meant she could sign the contract with Stark Industries’ new CEO in person.

The first day she was there, she saw something. She wasn’t quite sure what. She remembered glancing into an alleyway as she wandered down a street, and catching a glimpse of something red and a flash of white gauze like a spider’s web – and then a stabbing pain shot through her head and a memory flashed into her mind. Water – water and fire and sorrow. Then her headache spiked again and the alleyway was empty.

She went back to her hotel, took some ibuprofen and forgot about it.

 

It happened on her last day in New York. She was on her way to the airport, for crying out loud, when her taxi stopped. There was a huge queue of traffic up ahead, and distantly Donna could hear screams. She leaned forwards with a frown.

‘What is it, an accident?’ Donna asked the cabbie. He turned slowly, his face ashen, and his mouth formed a few soundless words before he threw his door open with a whimper and ran.

Donna gaped and yelled after him, ‘There’s no need to be like that! I was only asking a question!’

Then she saw what was heading down the road in front of her and she scrambled for her door.

The lock was jammed and she yanked at the handle desperately, using both hands, then pounded on the glass as she cast about for something to smash the window with.

The giant, flying, armoured thing that was flying down the street was getting closer, and the smaller creatures that seemed to be riding it were shooting at everything they could see. Donna saw the car two places in front of them explode in a cloud of shrapnel, and one of the creatures – aliens, maybe? – drop to the pavement and shoot a fleeing civilian. He dropped to the ground with a scream and lay still, and the alien stomped off down the sidewalk.

The car lock finally gave and Donna shoved the door open with a burst of panicked strength.

She made it two steps away from the taxi before the headache kicked in, images floating through her mind as she sank to the ground. A giant web sailing through the sky.  Streets full of smoke and flame and screams and ash. Creatures with red eyes and inhuman screams. Pictures of memories that she couldn’t remember. And…

Donna opened her eyes. ‘A _giant wasp_?’ she gasped incredulously, as she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled forwards.

One of the alien things spotted her as she lurched towards the shelter of an alley, hissing at her. She gasped as her headache spiked and tried to move faster. It bared its teeth in a rictus of a grin and sprang at her, and Donna cringed, stumbling backwards and falling to the ground.

Suddenly her view of the snarling alien was blocked by a man in a blue suit, and the alien was flying backwards with a clang of metal. It hit a wall and slid to the ground unmoving.

‘Doctor,’ Donna gasped, and she didn’t know why. 

Blue eyes peered at her, mystified. ‘What? No. I’m Ste- Captain America.’

‘You are kidding,’ Donna said flatly, her headache receding a touch to make way for incredulous sarcasm.

‘What – no. Listen, you have to get off the streets. Get into the subways. Anyone you find, tell them,’ he said, and Donna nodded, because she made it a policy to listen to people with a jawline like that. She stumbled to her feet, and her head was killing her but she could think past it now, she knew what to do.

 

New York was where it started. Crouched in the subways with other citizens, confused and scared, she kept it together and kept people calm, and memories settled in her mind like falling snow. A house crammed full of people. Cheerful, determined, hopeful people, eating army rations and huddling inside as soldiers tramped the streets outside to enforce the curfew. Refugees, and nuclear winter.

She hoped she wasn’t seeing the future.

When it was over, when they came back up into the sun, blinking and crying and desperately searching for each other, she stood to one side and remembered a library filled with people trying to rebuild lives they’d thought they’d lost.

She turned, on instinct, to address someone who wasn’t there, and the words died in her throat.

* * *

 

After New York, she started to travel. All over America, just because she was there and it was as good a place as any to start. Because there was something – someone – she had to find, and she didn’t know what or who. There were all these memories, and they weren’t fading like they had before, not if she concentrated, and they didn’t quite fit in with her life but at the same time they fit in perfectly, answering questions she hadn’t known she’d been asking. But the memories were patchy, partial, like fragments of a dream, and there was something missing – something so important, something she had to remember.

She didn’t find it in DC. She didn’t find _him_. But she did find explosions, and ships plunging out of the sky, and a spike in the persistent low-level headache, and a companion.

He was in the museum. She didn’t know why she’d gone there, except that something told her she needed to; and that whoever she was searching for was the kind of person you found in museums. Or was it that he was the kind of person museums were about? She wasn’t sure.

He was just standing there, in front of a display on WW2. Donna stood next to him at first, gazing at the polished replica of a shield. She remembered New York, and the man who’d saved her life, and she wondered.

After a while, she became aware of the man next to her. He hadn’t moved. She glanced sideways at him and saw that he was gazing at the exhibit, unblinking, an unidentifiable emotion on his face.

Donna frowned, uncharacteristically reluctant to speak, then, softly, said ‘ Excuse me.’

No response. Awkwardly, she reached out to tap his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry to bother – ow!’

As soon as she touched his arm he flinched back, his arm swinging up to slam her hand away with enough force that she thought he might have broken her wrist. ‘What the hell?’ she gritted out, cradling her arm.

He seemed taken aback, but didn’t say anything, just blinking at her.

‘If you’ve broken my hand, I’ll sue you. That’s what you Americans do, right?’ She eyed him suspiciously. ‘You’re quiet.’

He blinked at her, then looked away disdainfully, returning his gaze to the exhibit. Donna looked from it to him and back again.

‘Did you meet him?’ she asked, her voice softer. ‘You know. Captain America.’ She said it a little incredulously and made a face. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying that.’ A slight, almost hysterical giggle escaped her lips. ‘Captain America. In New York.’

The name seemed to produce a reaction in him; a slight but noticeable tension in his body, in the set of his jaw.

‘He saved my life,’ Donna continued, more subdued. ‘In New York. Saved me from a Chitauri soldier.’ The spike in her headache was practically routine by now. ‘What about you? He save your life?’

It was so long before he replied that she almost jumped when he spoke, his voice hoarse from disuse.

‘A long time ago.’ A frown, a bitter smile. ‘I think.’

‘What do you mean, “you think”? That’s the kind of thing you remember.’

‘No,’ he said, almost angry. ‘It isn’t.’

* * *

 

‘I get flashes,’ Donna said, stirring her coffee. ‘Pictures, mostly. Of these – impossible things. Aliens in London. Shadows that move. A giant _wasp_ , of all things. And there’s someone I need to find. A man, I think. I don’t remember what he looks like.’ She prodded at her pie morosely. ‘What about you?’

‘Fragments,’ he said. He had refused her offer of food or drink and was sitting opposite her in the booth of the little café outside the museum, staring a little blankly, hood pushed back to reveal unkempt dark hair that fell to his shoulders and bright blue eyes, ringed by shadow. ‘Like when you know a word’s just on the tip of your tongue but you can’t quite find it.’

‘What kind of fragments?’ she prompted after a long pause.

He looked at her bleakly. ‘Death, mostly. Killing. I think… I think I was a weapon. And a good one.’

She didn’t know how to respond to that, but after a pause he continued, ‘But there are some older ones. Like… before.’

‘Before what?’

‘I don’t know.’ He sounded frustrated, the first real hint of emotion. ‘But they’re… different. And he’s there. I remember him, I think.’ A frown crossed his face. ‘I remember him smaller.’

‘Captain America?’ she asked, barely able to believe what she was saying. He nodded.

‘He was happier, too,’ he said, frowning. ‘I remember him laughing. He used…’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t _remember_ ,’ he said, angry, and his hand tightened on the edge of the table. Donna saw cracks in the plastic.

‘What’s your name?’ she said, quickly, because she really didn’t want to pay for that table.

He relaxed a fraction and seemed to think. ‘He called me Bucky,’ he said after a moment. ‘The museum says my name is James Barnes.’

‘So what do you call yourself?’ Donna asked gently, even though she’d read the museum displays and Barnes was 70 years dead. For a guy with obvious psychological trauma, amnesia, and, well, that hair, he was giving off a surprisingly low level of crazy vibes.

‘I don’t know,’ he said after too long a pause. ‘I don’t think I’ve had a name in years. The Soldier, I guess.’

‘Do you want me to call you that? Just “the Soldier”?’ Donna said hesitantly, because he didn’t seem sure. Something echoed in her mind and she winced as her headache spiked.

‘No,’ he said vehemently. ‘No. Bucky… Bucky will do.’

‘OK, Bucky,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’m Donna Noble.’

* * *

 

SHIELD had crumbled, and that made it hard to get the information they were looking for. Plus, her new companion came with a series of Hydra goons attacking them. So Donna bought a car with some of the money they’d earned from the SI deal, forwarded her emails to her minion-in-chief, told her granddad that she’d be in America for a while, and they drove out of DC.

The first motel caught fire. Donna was nearly kidnapped by three black-suited minions, and as they dragged her out into the car park she got one with the Taser she’d bought right after New York ( got to love American weapons laws). The one holding her other arm let go in surprise (amateur) and then Bucky literally burst out of the door of his room, splinters flying everywhere and an explosion blossoming behind him, and shot the two remaining Hydra agents without even breaking stride.

They drove for three hours, the glow of the burning motel and the wail of sirens fading into the distance, before Donna recovered enough to talk about it.

‘So,’ she said, a little awkwardly. ‘When you said _secret agents trying to capture you_ , you weren’t kidding.’

Silence from the passenger seat. Donna tried again. ‘Thanks, by the way. For saving my life. Um. I think.’

More silence, slightly pointed this time.

‘Nice arm, by the way,’ Donna said with a glance at Bucky’s huddled form. ‘Very… I was going to say handy, but that’s probably rude, is that rude? Useful, it’s very useful. Would have been nice to know about, too, but I guess that’s your secret to keep.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Anything else I should know about? Metal leg? Extra, I dunno, extra heart?’ She took another deep breath, aware of the tinge of hysteria in her voice. ‘Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.’ She stared at the road and shook her head a little. ‘I don’t know why… Sorry.’

She spotted the glowing sign of another motel just ahead and signalled to turn off, sighing. ‘I suppose this is all just a bit of a shock, really. I’ve never seen anything like this, not before New York. Except I suppose I have, I just can’t remember it.’ She swung the car into a parking bay and braked, turning off the engine and setting the handbrake. ‘I guess this is all normal to you, isn’t it? You’re used to near death experiences, and… and… you’re asleep, aren’t you?’

A slight shifting of the huddled figure was the only reply she got. Donna rolled her eyes. ‘Typical. Here I go, pouring my heart out to a sleeping… I don’t even know what you count as.’ She reached out to shove Bucky’s shoulder and wake him up.

His hand flashed up and clamped onto her wrist before she could even touch him, and he was sitting upright and glaring at her in seconds. She just barely managed to stifle a yelp. Luckily it hadn’t been his metal arm that time.

‘You,’ she said, her arm still clamped in his grasp, ‘need to stop doing that.’

His glare changed to the bewildered expression that she was beginning to recognise as his talking-to-Donna-face. He released her arm and popped open his door. ‘You need to stop touching me,’ he said, and Donna stared at him for a moment as he got out of the car.

‘Did you just try to be sarcastic at me?’ she demanded as she got out of her door. ‘Seriously?’

He walked towards the motel reception without speaking, but she was sure he was rolling his eyes. She jogged a little to catch up, locking the car as she went. ‘Oi! Robocop! Are you trying to be sarcastic at me?’

*

They ended up with a twin room that night, because Bucky got to the counter first and Donna had never been shy about making a fuss in public but the TV behind the desk was playing news footage  of the mysterious blast at a nearby motel and the two people who had vanished from the scene and she knew not to draw attention to themselves.

As soon as they left the reception with the key, however, she glared at Bucky, refraining from punching him in the arm only because the ache in her wrist from when he’d grabbed her earlier was still making itself felt and she didn’t want a reprise.

‘What the hell was that?’ she hissed. ‘I am not sharing a room with you, this is not a made-for-TV movie-’

‘I need to be able to get to you,’ Bucky said flatly. ‘Last time we separated you nearly got kidnapped.’

Donna gaped at him for a moment, then took in a deep breath to question _every single_ assumption in that sentence, but Bucky interrupted her.

‘I need to be able to protect you. I can’t do that if you’re in another room,’ he pointed out, and Donna frowned.

‘Listen, sunshine, I do _not_ need protecting -’

‘You said. Earlier. You said, thank you for saving your life.’ Bucky was determinedly not looking at her, and his voice sounded stilted, as though he wasn’t used to speaking this much, for this long, about anything, and especially not about things that weren’t bland, personless mission reports and/or death threats. ‘I’m not going to let you die and waste all that effort.’

He unlocked the door to the room without pausing and went in, turning on the light with one hand and holding a knife – where had he got a knife from? Who knew? – in the other. While Donna waited outside, unsure of how to respond, he methodically checked the whole room and the little bathroom leading off it for intruders, then sheathed his knife and sat down on one of the beds.

Donna shook her head, then followed him, shutting the door behind her and swinging her rucksack from her shoulder and onto the other bed. For the first time it occurred to her that Bucky didn’t seem to have a bag, or a change of clothes, and while she had no idea what he’d been doing when she found him she could take a pretty good guess, because the helicarriers were hard to miss and in the day since they’d come down the internet had pretty much exploded, and he’d called himself the Soldier. Donna could put the pieces together and they were beginning to make a pretty terrifying jigsaw.

Bucky pulled out a handgun from a holster somewhere – she didn’t even know where he was hiding these weapons, and it was getting disturbing. He began to methodically take it apart, as Donna eyed the gun nervously.

‘Bucky,’ she said suddenly, because she was in this for the long haul now and she might as well, ‘do you have any other clothes? Or any luggage? Or anything?’

Bucky looked up. ‘I have my knives.’

‘That’s… not what I meant, and it’s actually beginning to worry me. Could you, uh, could you put the gun down? Please?’

Her voice might have squeaked a little at the end. She’d have denied it if anyone asked.

Bucky frowned at her and kept cleaning the gun.

‘OK. Fine. Whatever. Anyway, how long have you been wearing those clothes?’

Bucky looked down at his dark trousers, combat boots, and battered blue hoodie. ‘Not… I think not long? Less than a week. I… I probably got new clothes when I was given a mission reassignment.’

Donna sorted through that in her head, and decided that the _mission reassignment_ and _I think_ could wait. ‘By less than a week you mean more than a couple of days, right?’

‘Probably.’ Bucky frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Because you’re not exactly inconspicuous, and those clothes really need washing.’ Donna glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll stop off at a shop – a mall, sorry – and get you some new clothes. The first thing people will look for if they’re after us is a guy wearing ratty, bloodstained, slightly singed clothes matching that description.’

Bucky looked like he might argue, then nodded. ‘We have to remain inconspicuous.’

‘Right.’ Donna grabbed her bag and headed for the bathroom. ‘I’m going to have a shower. Please don’t shoot anyone while I’m gone.’

* * *

 

They went shopping the next day.

It was an absolute disaster.

The process of buying clothes was difficult in and of itself, because the Winter Soldier wanted clothes you could comfortably destroy the world in and Bucky Barnes wanted clothes that would have looked old fashioned on her granddad, and the combined effect was frankly difficult to cater for.

Eventually Donna managed to argue him into submission and buy two sets of cheap, non-descript and practical clothing – dark trousers with good-sized pockets, neutral T-Shirts and a new, frankly somewhat over-dramatic coat. It was dark blue, thick and well made, slightly old fashioned in cut and really, terrifyingly expensive.

Donna wouldn’t have let him have it, but it would hide his body armour and weapons well and something about it looked – well – familiar. It set off her headache, anyway, and so she resolved to buy it for him out of sheer stubbornness. Any clue was better than no clue at all.

Frankly, she was beginning to worry about her finances. She wasn’t rich, not even with the new Stark Industries deal and her very generous CEO paycheck, and the lack of actual working was beginning to make a serious dent in her bank account.

They sat in the cheap, tacky coffee shop in the mall, and Donna pulled out her laptop and tried to get some work done so that they could afford to keep going. It wasn’t easy. She glanced up as she reached for her latte, and saw Bucky glaring out of the window.

‘Problems?’ she asked nonchalantly, firing off a few emails to her disgruntled employees.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Bucky said quietly, his metal hand gripping the edge of the table in the thin gloves they’d bought.

Donna raised an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, we’re nearly broke. If you wouldn’t mind not attacking anyone until I’ve finished the project overview for this contract…’ She glanced around the shop. It was half full of bored parents, cocky teenagers, and exhausted people who clearly hadn’t wanted to go shopping. Nothing unusual there. She returned to her laptop, tapping away quickly.

Bucky tensed. She glanced up, watching his hand drift towards his gun.

‘Oy!’ she said warningly.

Bucky scowled, not looking at her. ‘We need to leave.’

‘Not until I get this finished,’ Donna snapped.

 

Three explosions, two dead Hydra agents, and a GSW to the shoulder (hers) later, they were sitting in another motel over the state line.

 

‘So maybe you were right,’ Donna said grumpily. She was dosed way beyond what was safe and probably legal on the cheapest painkillers available at the all-night pharmacy they’d stopped at, and the wound in her shoulder still felt like someone stabbing her with an icepick.

‘Say that again, I should probably get a record of it,’ Bucky said from the door, dumping the bags on the other bed and kicking it shut.

‘Was that sarcasm?’ Donna demanded. ‘Are you trying to be sarcastic?’

‘Didn’t we already have this conversation?’ Bucky tossed her bag onto the bed beside her and began to rummage through his own.

Donna stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Ninety year old brainwashed soldier, you’re catching up fast.’

Bucky glanced up and then away, so quick she hardly saw the movement, and the shadow of a grimace crossed his face, wiping away the half-smile and settling his features back into the cold mask of the Winter Soldier.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From my planning document:  
> • They’re safe for now, but Hydra is still hunting them, and that’s the immediate problem, temporarily overriding their quests for memories.  
> • Also, Hydra are *assholes*. Nobody likes Hydra.  
> • Nobody.  
> • (interlude: HEY SOD YOU SPENCER)  
> • So they figure, well, they’re on an extended roadtrip looking for two people who are known for recklessly endangering themselves to take down people like Hydra, and it isn’t like they can avoid trouble anyway cause Hydra are hunting them (or at least Bucky) so…  
> • Let’s go steal a Hydra base?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: Depiction of PTSD symptoms including dissociation and some flashbacks. Further discussion of memory loss and brainwashing. Canon-typical mentions of mind-control/torture. Canon-typical violence, but no death. Feel free to message me if you want more detailed warnings, or if you feel something else should be warned for.
> 
> This was not going to be multichapter. It just, uh, happened. Will there be a third chapter? Who knows, not me. (I hope there will be but... I am not reliable.)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who left reviews/kudos on the first chapter. It means a lot, and it's really motivated me to get back into writing.

It wasn’t long before they ran into trouble. Trouble of a distinctly familiar nature.

Donna eyed the building sceptically. It didn’t look like a front for an evil organisation, but that, she supposed, was the point. She took a breath, smoothed down the line of her suit, and strode confidently in through the front doors.

‘Visit from HR,’ she said casually as she made her way past reception, ignoring the spluttered protests. She held up the plastic motel keycard as if it were a badge and kept walking, making her way into the sea of cubicles in the open plan office. She swiped an ID card from the edge of some luckless employee’s desk as she passed, pocketing it and heading right for the door marked “Authorised personnel only.”

The ID card didn’t get her through it, but judicious water-cooler loitering until someone else came out did.

The corridor beyond was concrete, with bundled wiring down the walls and bare fluorescent bulbs overhead. She shook her head. ‘They’re lucky I’m not really from HR, cause this is a lawsuit waiting to happen.’

She frowned. Who had she spoken to? The headache was building again, and the echo of a memory was forming in her mind again, but she kept walking.

The corridor branched up ahead and she paused for a moment. A pair of labtechs were walking towards the intersection, white coats and a general air of evil-scientistness. She ducked hurriedly down the other fork, crouching behind a handy trolley of equipment. They passed, their footsteps echoing and receding down the empty halls. Donna straightened up and headed down the hall they’d come from.

There was a room with a computer terminal. There were other things in there too – things she didn’t want to speculate on. She ignored the stains on the floor and the wide range of sharp, shiny things on the table and went to the computer, pulling a flash drive from her pocket.

She tapped a few buttons experimentally and the computer hummed to life. She almost laughed when she saw that it wasn’t password protected. What kind of evil organisation was this?

Jamming the USB into the first port she found, she started to poke at the file structure. This machine was running what looked like Windows 7, for heaven’s sake, someone needed to teach these people how to run a criminal enterprise.

Files flashed up on the screen as she started the download. She glanced down the corridor, checking for interruptions, and then –

Then a file caught her eye. Diving through the folders, she located what she was looking for, one eye on the download progress. As she scanned through files, her mouth began to open in horror. ‘Oh my god,’ she whispered. ‘What did they do to you?’

The download flashed. She pulled the usb from its port and started closing the terminal down. Footsteps echoed down the corridor in the distance and she cursed.

She jammed the USB into her bra – the one place, experience taught her, nobody ever bothered to check, and the underwire hid things from scanners – and what experience? When had she ever needed to hide things from evil villains? – and stepped away from the machine, scanning the room. The footsteps were growing closer – footsteps, and voices.

She threw herself under the computer terminal, pushing aside the cabinet under the desk and worming into the gap between the cabinet and the wall. She was hidden from view from three sides, they wouldn’t see her from the door, but if they walked around the other side of the terminal –

The footsteps stopped. ‘-very unusual,’ a voice was saying. ‘We weren’t sure what to do.’

‘Have the technicians bring him. Ready the systems for a full reset,’ said another voice, more authoritative. ‘Once he’s ready for storage, we can alert command. And have all the guards alerted on this level.’

‘Sir.’ More footsteps. Several people were in the room now, and there were noises of metal clanking on metal. Donna held her breath as someone walked over to the terminal. Keys tapped over her head. She stared fixedly at the concrete wall and tried to stop breathing.

‘Systems coming online now,’ said the voice overhead. The footsteps moved away and Donna breathed an inaudible sigh of relief.

There was a change in the atmosphere of the room. Footsteps were approaching, several.

‘He’s on his way,’ the first voice said. Donna began, very cautiously, to twist herself around, hoping to peep over the edge of the filing cabinet. She was halfway through this when the room went silent and she froze, her leg already starting to cramp.

‘Well,’ said the authoritative voice. Donna labelled her as Boss-Lady. ‘I see you’ve returned.’

Whoever she spoke to made no reply. Donna got her leg under her and cautiously peeped over the cabinet. She could see a tiny sliver of room, between the cabinet and the top of the desk. There were labcoats-aplenty, and someone – Boss-Lady presumably – in a stylish winter coat. Whoever she was speaking to was standing between two people in heavy combat boots and – those were guns they were holding. Not a friendly guest, then.

‘Mission report,’ said boss-lady. There was more silence.

‘Is the programming faulty?’ Boss-Lady turned to a lab tech.

‘We’re not sure, sir. It returned of its own volition, but it appears to be shut down into basic mode.’

‘Hmm. Full wipe and reset, then.’ Boss-Lady turned away. The technicians began to bustle around a piece of equipment, and Donna got a sinking feeling in her gut.

She had to be able to do something. Whatever a full wipe was, it didn’t look fun.

Boss Lady was standing in front of combat-boot-guards. ‘Mission report. Code word: basilica.”

There was an intake of breath and the combat-boots shifted as though to support the suddenly weak legs of the unfortunate guest.

‘Control reset,’ said a raspy voice, and Donna’s heart dropped to her boots, because that was Bucky.

* * *

 

_The previous day_

‘Are you _joking_ ,’ Donna said flatly. The man standing in front of her, gun drawn, seemed confused by this response.

‘Ma’am, I must ask you, as a federal agent -’

‘OK, first thing?’ Donna stepped back a little, drawing the motel room door more closely shut. ‘I am _British_. Do you even have the authority to question me?’

‘I – I’m not here to – you’re on US soil -’ the man began, but Donna steamed right past him before he could stutter out a thought.

‘Second thing?’ Donna continued, her estuary accent getting thicker as she became more animated. ‘You ain’t got the right to come in here, you need a warrant. Even in America you gotta have a warrant before you come in here. And you ain’t got one. Alright?’

He looked even more perplexed, and opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off again. ‘And third thing?’ She paused slightly. ‘That isn’t a real FBI badge and you aren’t a federal agent.’

He looked at the badge in his free hand, almost instinctively, before looking back up at her, mouth open in shock.

‘That’s a fake badge, and _that’s_ a federal offence,’ Donna continued. ‘And that makes you a criminal. I don’t know who you are or what you really want, and I don’t care.’

He regained just enough composure to sneer, dropping the badge back into a pocket. ‘Alright, lady. But I’m still the one holding a gun. You _will_ let me in.’

‘Nah,’ Donna said, offhandedly.

‘What exactly do you think you can do about it?’ he snarled, and thumbed the safety off, bringing the gun up.

‘Nothing,’ Donna replied cheerfully, giving a sunny smile.

The agent suddenly went slack and let out a choking gasp. He began to crumple and the gun began to drop from his limp hand, to be caught by the barrel by a metal arm.

The agent sagged to the ground, eyes rolling up in his head.

‘But I can distract you while he sneaks up on you,’ Donna said to the air where he’d been as his eyes slid shut.

Bucky, standing behind the stricken man, rolled his eyes.

‘Think we’d better leave,’ Donna said, thoughtfully, eyes sliding past him to the large black van turning into the motel parking lot off the interstate.

Bucky glanced behind him and nodded begrudgingly.

\--

The next motel was nicer. Donna hoped this place didn’t end up on fire too.

‘Do you always get this many people coming after you?’ Donna asked as she unzipped her suitcase, pulling out her laptop.

Bucky shrugged his non-metal shoulder. “Dunno.” He seemed to think for a moment. “Normally it was me doing the chasing.”

Donna eyed him warily as she unlocked her laptop and started to connect to the motel’s terrible wifi.

Bucky settled in to the armchair in the corner of the room, the plates of his metal arm flexing and shifting gently in what seemed almost like a self-soothing pattern.

Donna hummed to herself as she tapped at her laptop. ‘You know, now that all that data’s been dumped onto the internet, we could probably work out where they’re coming from.’

Bucky didn’t react, but the plates in his arm stopped shifting.

‘Would be a shame if anything were to happen to one of their regional bases. Since the entire organisation’s been destabilised.’

Bucky didn’t say anything. She glanced over at his frozen form, several emotions flickering across his face.

Donna tapped a few keys, then turned the screen around. ‘Gotcha.’

It was a non-descript corporate website, with an address and some fluff about what the front company was doing. Innocent, even to someone who was looking, but there were always tells; vague corporate boilerplate filled the “about us” sections, and the recruitment links were all dead-ends. You didn’t want to accidentally hire real office workers into your front for a multinational neo-Nazi criminal empire. That was where they’d gone wrong, really; hiring some genuine workers to move paper around would have covered their tracks a whole lot better.

Bucky still didn’t react. Donna frowned. ‘Oi, Robocop, say something, you’re freaking me out.’

Bucky stood up abruptly. ‘I’m going to shower.’

He crossed the room in powerful, somewhat jerky strides, grabbing at the door to the bathroom. It banged shut behind him and Donna noticed the imprint of his grip on the mangled doorhandle.

Donna snapped the laptop shut, drumming her fingers abstractedly on the casing. Crossing to the bathroom door, she paused by the handle, noticing that there was no sound of rushing water.

‘Bucky?’ She tapped at the door. ‘Bucky.’

No response. Donna let out a breath, leaning against the door, and let a heartfelt swearword escape from her lips. She felt suddenly very small, all the energy rushing through her moments before drained.

She leaned her back against the wall beside the door, fixing her gaze on the bland ceiling lamp.

‘I got nightmares, after New York,’ she said conversationally, as though Bucky were right next to her. ‘Lots of them. Not about New York though, that was weird. I kept dreaming of some – some kind of bugs.’ She shuddered. ‘I – I couldn’t look in mirrors for a while. It – there was something, something I couldn’t –‘ She stopped, took a deep breath. ‘I still remember. You know, fragments. There was – there was a library. And there were – there was someone important, so important.’ She watched the room in front of her, bland impersonal motel décor, the rumbled bedspread and discarded laptop the only sign she’d been there. ‘I couldn’t do a lot of things, after New York. It felt like every new thing I saw would bring the nightmares back – the nightmares and the headache.’ The pain pulsed at her temples again, as though the mere mention of it had summoned it, but she pushed past it. ‘What I’m saying is. I know how it feels. I shouldn’t have asked.’ She sighed, folding her arms. ‘We can head out the day after tomorrow, go south for a bit, try and outrun them.’

There was a click, and the door opened a crack. Donna pushed off the wall and was greeted by Bucky, hollow eyed, grim faced, arm plates shifting like a living thing. She gave him a tentative smile. ‘Let’s take tomorrow to rest. We can go into town for a while.’

A little of the tension in his face eased and Donna felt something in her own chest release as he let out the shaky breath he’d been holding.

* * *

_Present_

Donna stayed frozen under the desk. The technicians were bustling around the chair, and there was a humming whine from the equipment as it began to warm up. Donna found herself fixing her gaze on a stain on the floor. It looked like blood, and it didn’t look old.

‘Control reset,’ said Bucky, and Donna did not move, but it felt as though her heart was going to burst from her chest. ‘New mission head assignment waiting.’

‘Set mission head, Regional Leader Marchene,’ said Boss Lady. Marchene was her, presumably. First name or last? Donna felt the USB digging into her ribs. That information must be on the drive somewhere.

‘Mission head set,’ sad Bucky, and his voice was so cold.

One of the labcoats came bustling up to Boss Lady. ‘Machine’s all set up. Ready to wipe.’

Boss Lady took a step back, considering. ‘Hmm. Partial reset worked but I think I’d feel happier with a full wipe. Put it back in cryo after. I’m sure we’ll find a use for it.’

 _It_. She considered Bucky an _it_. Donna gritted her teeth and watched as Boss Lady turned to leave, her path taking her past the desk Donna was hiding under.

Donna took in a breath, and shoved forwards at the cabinet with all her might. It shot forwards, heavy metal screeching, and slammed into Boss Lady’s legs. She fell, her expensive winter coat flapping around her, with a scream; Donna exploded out from under the desk with a yell of her own, and then things happened very fast.

Boss Lady was crumpled on the floor, the heavy cabinet pinning down her legs, and she was bleeding from the temple; she must have struck the floor on her way down.

The labcoated technicians reacted to the sound of her yell, but slowly; they were all occupied with the machinery, which was glowing ominously as it hummed.

The armed guards were not so slow. They were holding Bucky, limp and docile, between them, but at the sight of Donna they dropped him like a sack of flour, raising their intimidating guns at the threat.

Donna kept her momentum up, diving forwards, and cannoning into the technicians, pushing them to one side as she ducked behind the tangle of machinery. Some of them grabbed at her, but most of them ducked and screamed as the guards began shooting in her general direction. The machinery sparked and hissed as vital portions were damaged and Donna cowered on the other side; she saw two white-coated figures crumple to the ground, blood spreading across their snow white labcoats, and for a moment her head spun, and then she saw Bucky lying on the ground across the room and she closed her eyes, a moment of desperate hope cascading through her, and she pulled the gun out from the holster in the small of her back and shoved it with all her might, sliding it across the floor to Bucky.

His eyes snapped open and he caught it unerringly in his flesh hand.

The two guards were advancing on the machinery, the remaining technicians were fussing around their prone colleagues, and Boss Lady was coming out of her gaze enough to suddenly focus on Bucky heaving himself to his feet.

She let out an abortive yell before Bucky, striding past her, kicked her in the head hard enough to knock her out. Donna winced in sympathy, and resolved to have A Conversation about non-lethal force and brain damage.

The yell alerted the guards, who turned too late, pistol shots cracking out in the hubbub of the room and taking out their kneecaps in a spray of gore. They went down yelling and Bucky disdainfully kicked their guns away, advancing on the terrified scientists.

Donna closed her eyes and grimaced, but there were no more gunshots. When she peeked past the tangle of machinery and wiring, the labcoated workers were on the floor unconscious but unharmed. Bucky was standing in the centre of the room, gun held loosely in one hand, staring down at them.

Donna remembered the news footage from Washington. The Winter Soldier had fought with that same terrifying efficiency. But the Winter Soldier hadn’t aimed for any kneecaps.

Donna stood up, a little shakily. Her foot caught against some debris and Bucky turned at the noise, gun half raised. His face was blank and empty and his flesh hand was shaking.

‘Bucky?’ she said cautiously, picking her way over the debris. ‘Bucky. Hey.’

He lowered the gun, but the look on his face – empty, a little lost – tugged at her heart.

‘Bucky. It’s me. It’s Donna.’

‘The control reset,’ Bucky said, in a dull voice.

Donna bit her lip. ‘Bucky. It’s you, remember? You’re Bucky. You’re not –‘

‘It didn’t work,’ he interrupted her, and the look on his face was a tumult of emotions. ‘The control reset. It didn’t work.’

‘OK,’ Donna said. ‘OK. Let’s – let’s get you out of here.’

‘The reset didn’t work.’ He looked up at her. ‘I’m Mission Head. The codes didn’t work.’ He gave a tentative smile. ‘They can’t reprogram me.’

Donna let out a breath. ‘When we get out of here we are going to have a talk about that reprogramming thing.’ She swallowed. ‘I uploaded their files to the internet. They’re wide open. The location got sent right to SHIELD and the federal agencies.’

‘We’d better move,’ Bucky said, his voice a little less dull.

‘You wanna go take out the rest of the drones?’ Donna let herself give a small smile.

Bucky rolled his head from side to side and flexed his metal arm. ‘Sounds like fun.’

* * *

_Previous day_

Bucky hovered in the doorway of the motel bathroom, his face still tight around the eyes.

‘I promise. We can go get ice cream, see a movie,’ Donna continued, her tone as soothing as she could make it.

‘I want to take down the base,’ Bucky said abruptly.

Donna blinked. ‘You’re sure?’

Bucky stalked past her and sat down in his corner chair. ‘You’re right. They’re chasing me. This is the perfect time to take down their regional operations and buy ourselves some time.’

Donna hesitated. ‘I don’t want you to get hurt –‘

Bucky looked up at her with the most incredulous gaze she’d ever seen. Somehow, on him, it was hilarious. Donna barely stifled a giggle.

‘What’s the layout?’ Bucky asked, clearly pretending he couldn’t see her laughing.

Donna coughed and opened her laptop. ‘There’s a company headquarters, an older building, plans say it was renovated in the 60s by a construction firm that – whoops – turns out to be Hydra.’ She tapped at some keys and grinned. ‘Remind me to thank that Romanov woman if we ever meet.’

Bucky snorted. ‘If you two ever meet, I’m gonna make sure I’m at least two states away. She's worse than you are.’

Donna glanced up. ‘You know her?’

He opened his mouth, then paused, and blinked, irritated. ‘I guess not.’

‘Memory fragment?’ Donna asked, sympathetically, and he gave an irate grunt.

She turned her attention back to her laptop. ‘Anyway, the plans aren’t available online, or at least they weren’t.’

‘Romanov’s data dump again?’ Bucky was leaning forwards, craning to see her screen.

‘Well, one of the encryption keys in the dump. It got me into a back door section of the local planning authority, found the real plans. Looks like Hydra threw some bribes around, got a fake building layout put in place.’

Bucky frowned. ‘And you found this encryption key… what, by chance?’

Donna opened her mouth to respond with sarcasm, but found herself speechless. How _did_ she find the key? There were hundreds in the raw data dumped online, seventy years of record keeping laid wide open, mountains of data to sift through. There were internet groups already making a start, combing through the leaks, looking for anything interesting; there were plenty of other interested parties too. She remembered paging through the raw data files, lines of code skimming past her eyes, in a motel some time in the previous week, Bucky doing something ominous and brooding across the room. She’d never been much of a tech person. She had to get her neighbours kid to show her how to set up her new phone.

The headache spiked. She let her hands lay limp on the keys ‘I… don’t know,’ she said, a little helplessly.

Bucky watched her sympathetically. ‘Memory fragment?’

Donna gave an affirmative grimace.

‘So what’s the plan?’ he said, gently, and it brought Donna back to the present with a start.

‘Building’s occupied by this front company, but it looks like the “employees” are all Hydra. I’m gonna go in as a HR inspector, take a look around.’

Bucky gave her a dubious look. ‘Won’t they be suspicious that they aren’t expecting you?’

‘Nobody is ever suspicious,’ Donna said confidently. ‘Walk in with a good suit and they’ll hand you the keys themselves.’

He cocked his head. ‘You’ve done this before?’

‘Yep,’ Donna said, popping the p. ‘Thing about these companies is, they always miss the details. I bet you, you take a look at their paperwork, there won’t be any misfilings, any people fiddling the system, any little office supply thefts, any of that. Gives them away every time.’

‘I thought you were a PR consultant,’ Bucky said, an amused edge creeping into his voice.

‘Yeah, well,’ Donna said, suddenly unsure. ‘I must’ve done something else first. I just…’

‘Don’t remember,’ Bucky completed.

He nodded, breaking the moment. ‘You go in the front route, try to get into the restricted area. There’ll be a different computer network there, with the regional intel on it.’

‘Sneak in, grab the data, wipe their computer banks,’ Donna said, confidence returning.

‘I’ll go in through the roof.’ Bucky stared at the screen. ‘We need to flush out the regional commander somehow.’

‘Lure them out, maybe,’ Donna said, tapping her laptop thoughtfully. ‘Make a scene they’d have to come and deal with.’

‘Then we can take them out,’ Bucky said confidently. ‘I’ve got some grenades somewhere.’

‘OK first thing,’ Donna interrupted hurriedly, ‘you have grenades? Where the hell did you get grenades? Where were you _keeping_ grenades?’

Bucky opened his mouth to answer, but she rushed on. ‘Second. We’re not killing anyone, OK?’

Bucky frowned. ‘Hydra aren’t exactly smalltime crooks--’

‘No killing,’ Donna said, firmly. She wasn’t exactly sure where the conviction was coming from, but there was some part of her that felt –

 _Headache_ , and there was a fragment of a voice, echoing in her mind, but before she could hear what he was saying the pain blinded her, her vision dissolving in a mass of sparks, and she clutched at her head with a whimper.

She felt Bucky lift the laptop off her lap and out of harms way as she curled up sideways on the bed. The mattress dipped beside her as he sat down next to her, and the comforting warmth of his hand resting on her shoulder permeated through the pain. He was humming something, singing softly, a comforting sound.

The pain lifted after a long moment that felt like eternity, slowly ebbing back to manageable levels. Blinking sparks out of her eyes, she let some of the tension relax from her body, and saw Bucky leaning over her, an unfamiliar expression of worry on his face.

‘Let me get you some water,’ he said, moving away from the bed. ‘Sip, slowly,’ he instructed as he handed her a bottle of water from his bag. It sounded like a conversation he’d had many times before.

Donna sat up, shaky, and let the cool water wash over her dry mouth. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d have such a good bedside manner,’ she commented.

Bucky looked down. ‘I think… I think I used to look after someone a lot. Someone who got sick a lot.’

Donna thought back to the museum, and the medical form under Steve Roger’s name. She could believe that he needed a lot of looking after.

‘Maybe this isn’t a good idea,’ Bucky said, frowning at her.

 Donna scowled. ‘I’m _fine_. Don’t go getting all protective.’

He held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘OK, fine. Don’t blame me if it all goes wrong.’

* * *

 

 

The Hydra base, surprisingly, did not blow up as they walked away from it. Donna felt a little disappointed, but also proud. Clearly the “no killing everyone” strategy was working so far.

Bucky was breathing shallowly, the plates on his metal hand shifting. Donna watched out of the corner of her eye, and saw how pale and tight his jaw was, how distant his eyes seemed.

He fought like a machine. Like a weapon. The ragged clothes he’d been wearing when they met were gone, but the hollow look in his eyes was back, and Donna bit her lip as she watched him move like a hunter, like a robot, as they walked to the car. Sirens were rising in the distance.

She slid behind the wheel, pulling out of the car park and speeding away at just under the speed limit, glancing at the flashing lights beginning to congregate around the building in her rear view mirror as they grew more distant.

Bucky, in the passenger seat, stared straight ahead. He hadn’t put his seatbelt on.

‘Bucky?’ she asked cautiously. He twitched a little. ‘Bucky. Buck. Hey.’ She took her eyes off the road for a moment, reaching out to wave her hand in his line of vision. He blinked, turned to her; his eyes still seemed worryingly dull, incurious, blank.

Donna cursed internally. Yeah, this had been a bad idea.

‘Bucky, I need you to listen to me. Can you hear me?’

After a moment, Bucky nodded mechanically.

Donna bit her lip, debating what to say, then settled on the easiest option. ‘Do you like ice cream?’

After a moment of blank staring, Bucky nodded, a ghost of a smile wreathing his lips.

‘Good. Cause I’m in the mood to go eat a whole pint of ice cream and watch cartoons. You with me?’

Bucky _grinned_. It was unsettling, especially with the smear of blood drying on his cheek. Some of the life was returning to his face. ‘We going to paint our nails and talk about boys?’

‘Sure thing, Robocop, I can even braid your hair,’ Donna retorted, turning off the highway and heading for the nearest store.

 

* * *

 

The Hydra base was mostly quiet. It was a little eerie. The local cops had come through and carted off the tied-up Hydra agents, and the “office” space was deserted.

Footsteps, cautious and prepared, echoed through the bare concrete of the Hydra tunnels.

‘The computer systems have been cracked wide open.’ The voice in his earpiece was laconic, almost tinged with boredom, but it was a front; there was curiosity under that mask. ‘The info’s been dumped out onto the internet with the rest.’

‘Romanov again?’

‘Not guilty,’ she said, smooth and convincing in his ear. She landed like a cat in the middle of the room he’d just entered, dropping from a ceiling grate. ‘It’s clear, but there’s no doubt it was him. I know his style.’

‘You’re sure?’ And she wouldn’t say it if she wasn’t, but part of him hoped she was lying again, fiercely hoped…

‘I’m sure.’ Romanov crossed the room, narrowing her eyes at the terminal. ‘And he wasn’t alone. He’s working with someone.’

Clanking footsteps echoed in the corridor and Iron Man entered, ducking past the splintered ruins of the door. He flipped up his faceplate, his voice switching from the harsh modulators to his natural tenor mid-sentence. ‘She’s right. They wiped out the security data before they dumped it open, but JARVIS is better. There’s someone with him.’

They both looked back at him expectantly.

‘Your move, Cap,’ Tony said softly.


End file.
